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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Gen. Fremont’s Departure

It is announced that news from Gen. Fremont’s department is
to be looked for before many days.Gen.
Fremont is at Wheeling, Virginia, where he has issued general orders, assuming
the command of his division and assigning to Gen. Kelly the Command of the
railroad district, including the north eastern counties of the State.The Wheeling Press on the 31st ult. says:

“Gen. Fremont comes among us in the face of considerable
popular prejudice growing out of his prior political status and associations,
but he is a patriot and a skillful officer, a man of determined and untiring
energy, and has the advantage of birth and education in the South, and enlarged
experience in the mountainous regions, and among mankind generally, which will
enable him to appreciate the wants and peculiar position of our people; and we
have confidence that he will rightly fulfill his mission in the mountain
department.”

Gen. Rosecrans, relieved of his command by the appointment
of Gen. Fremont, addressed a general order to his troops, taking leave of them
in which he says:

“Companions in arms: in this vast department of mountains
and forests, in the rains of summer, and cold and storms of winter, for nine
months I have witnessed your uncomplaining patience, zeal and activity – your watchings,
your marchings and your combats.Under
God, to your bravery and good conduct it is due that not a single reverse has
attended our arms in all these vast regions.Wherever I go, I shall bear with me the remembrance of men, who, leaving
home and all its endearments, against the force of all former tastes and habits,
have under taken to inure themselves to the toils, privations, hardships and
dangers of military life, and have succeeded.But, comrades, proud as I am of the manly energy you have thus
displayed, I am prouder still to bear testimony to the pure and lofty
patriotism which has called it forth.No
mean and sectional spirit, no low truckling to reckless leadership, no blind
and ignorant fanaticism has animated you.By your intelligence, your magnanimity and forbearance toward those whom
the rebellion has misled, you have shown that you entered into the conflict
with a conviction that the interests of free government and even of freedom
itself, opposed by arbitrary and despotic will – by rebellion in favor of
despotism – lay in the issue, and that you fought for the liberties of all,
both North and South.Such men deserve
to be and will be free themselves, or dying, will bequeathe liberty and a
glorious name to their posterity.That
it may be your happy lot, in the Union under the Constitution and the laws, to
be free and happy yourselves, and to bequeathe freedom, happiness and a
glorious name to your children, is my cherished hope.”